Use Of Social Media In Financial Services

“Have you tried social media?” is a question that you’ve probably been asked more times than you’d like. Social media seems to be the answer to everything these days…

Want more brand awareness? Use social media. Want to interact with your audience? Use social media. Want to target a specific audience with your ads? Yep, you guessed it – a major part of financial services marketing is social media.

However, it’s no good just using social media for the hell of it, putting out a post out from your business account and hoping for the best isn’t going to suffice if you want to generate high-quality leads.

Our primary (and most effective) use of social media in financial services is for advertising, as you can target your audience to who your ideal audience would be.

Video Transcription

Hi. So I want to tell you how we use social media in financial services that we don’t just post stuff out on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and just hope is going to get to the right person. I mean, posting stuff organically is great for brand building.

But if you really want to generate leads we use social media for is advertising because it’s just so targeted.

So the first thing that you social media advertising for and the biggest quick win is with remarketing. So you can target ads someone or anyone that’s been on your website before. And you can filter out the people that aren’t interested by just targeting those that have had a good look around your sites, whether been on more than one page, or if they’ve been on for longer than 1015 seconds, which is like a lifetime in internet time. So you’ll want to retarget because not everyone is ready to make a purchase or get a quick quote or get in touch with you straight away. So they might need time to digest what you’ve told them. It just not the right time. And they’re just researching all they just literally didn’t have time when they’re on your site earlier. And just having that prompt reminding them so that when you see that ones they may see that 2345 times. But yeah, so it’s a good balance of not getting it in their face too often. So the best thing that we do is we have multiple remarketing ads if you just have one and they keep seeing the same one is going to get annoying. So basically we have sometimes up to about 20 different remarketing ads. So you take that one key message on each ad. And you kind of leverage that for each remarketing and you can remark it on pretty much every social media platform. So we use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even if we think is not relevant for you know if it’s a b2c will see use LinkedIn if it’s b2b also use Instagram because if they’ve been on your website, and then they’re on Instagram, they’re still potentially your customer. So it’s good to just remarket on every channel. And you don’t need to spend a fortune on remarketing either, sometimes, literally two pounds a day per platform is enough to get in front of, you know, plenty of people. So it just depends on how busy your website.

So we use Facebook advertising, we’re seeing a massive shift in advertising spend from Google Ads over to Facebook, because you can still get really great quality. And especially in financial services, and especially in b2c. Pretty much every financial service products, there’s like interest targeting. So you can target people who have been interacting with content around your financial service product. Or if they’ve been on other websites that feature content about your financial service product, it’s really great targeting it works really well. They’ve spent ages on this said earlier, the quality of Facebook ads are great. But that is down to you as an advertiser. So it depends on the messaging of your ad messaging that’s on the page that they go on, the quality of that lead is down to you. So it’s, you’ve got to create buying for the brand, you got to make it really clear what happened next, if you want to keep your advisors happy, and get really good quality leads, you’ve got to spend time on not trying to trick them into filling out your form or just be really open and honest. And let him share there is real value in speaking to your advisors.

Chatbots are amazing on Facebook. So we use Facebook as a trigger a chatbot related to a specific product or service product. And it basically filters out the rubbish and it will, you’ll end up basically automating a whole communication with a potential client. And then by the time it gets through to you and into your CRM, the scheduled a call and a time and they know exactly what you can do for them. And they really want to speak to you.

So LinkedIn, obviously great for b2b. It can be really expensive. If you do what linked in says, we obviously don’t and get really cheap clicks. So you got a number of different ways to bed, you what you chose your audience, you can choose to bid on a cost per click. And LinkedIn recommends about five quid and you don’t want to be paying that much for a social media click. But what we do and what I highly recommend, and it’s the cheapest way is to bid to get in front of 1000 people. So they call it bidding on 1000 impressions. So basically, you’re bidding around 15 to 20 quid to get in front of 1000 people. And that that will just depend on who your audience is. And then if you get more than four clicks in that thousand, you’ll get cheaper clicks, and bidding on a cost per click. Hopefully, that makes sense. Some of our campaigns we’re getting cost per clicks at around 35p. And that is all down to the ad. You’ve got to put the work in and make your ad really compelling, really engaging, make sure it really stands out and your audience you know is bank so LinkedIn targeting you target anything that’s on people’s profile. So job title, seniority, their industry, anything about the company size. So for our a marketing, we know we want to target people in financial services, people that own businesses of a certain size. And we can do that on LinkedIn. So you’ll be much most of our cold traffic comes from LinkedIn. And pretty much all of our b2b financial service clients use LinkedIn as well to really great advertising plan.

So Twitter, we only really use Twitter when we need more volume because Facebook is better quality more leads for cheaper but Twitter is great at all the third-party data that Facebook used to have Twitter has as well so you can target if you if you need high net worth. So people have certain income level you can choose that on Twitter, you can target by what they’re who they’re following, what’s our content they’re interacting with. It is really good. We just find at the moment that Facebook’s better.

But that can always change Instagram, you have all the same targeting options as you do with Facebook. In fact, you manage your Instagram ads in Facebook ads, it just needs a different strategy with your ad. So with Facebook, you don’t need to rely as heavily on the image. The text is the headline really stand out where they really don’t on Instagram. So we again we only use Instagram if we need more volume and we have a completely different strategy with the kind of the imagery that we use. So that’s pretty much all the advice that I can give you on using social media for financial services. If you want to know more about how we can help you please do get in touch today.

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The Quickest Win Of Using Social Media In Financial Services Is…

Remarketing. This tool allows you to target your ads at anyone that has been on your website before, so you already have an advantage as you know that they’ve got an interest in you or your product or service. Did you know that you can also gauge how interested someone is in you, by how long they spend perusing around your website and if they’ve been on more than one page.

As a general indication, if someone has been on your page longer than 10 or 15 seconds, it shows that they are interested, as that’s quite a long time in internet time.

Why Retarget On Social Media In financial Services?

The reality is that (as much as we want them to be), not everyone is ready to make a purchase, get a quote from you or get in touch with you. It might be as innocent as they simply did not have the time at that moment, or they might need time to weigh up their options and digest the information you’ve provided them. It’s important to remember that good thing take time.

But rest assured, all hope is not lost just yet… A gentle reminder of your presence and offerings should be sufficient enough to persuade them to want to do business with you.

Don’t be so pushy…

No one likes to feel like they’re being forced into anything. People like to feel in control of their buying decisions and that if they make a decision, it will be off their own back. So the pushy salesman talk can take a back seat on this one.

What we do is, run multiple remarketing ads. Because if people keep seeing the same ad time and time again, it’s going to be annoying and act as more of a deterrent more than anything. Sometimes we run up to 20 different remarket ads, taking the key message and leveraging it.

Remarketing can be done on pretty much every social media platform. We use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. even if we think it’s not relevant. We’ll still use LinkedIn for B2C and equally, we’ll use Instagram for B2B, because if people have been on your website and are checking Instagram, they are still potentially your customer. So we recommend remarketing on every social media platform.

You’ll also be pleased to hear that remarketing doesn’t have to cost the earth, either. Even spending as little as £2 a day will be enough to get you in front of plenty of interested people.

We love Facebook ads

We’re seeing a massive shift in advertising spend from Google ads over to Facebook and for good reason, as you can still generate really great quality leads, especially in financial services and B2C.

This is because you can utilise interest targeting as virtually every financial service product can be selected to target your specific ads to. For example, you can target people that have been interacting with content around your financial service product or if they’ve been on other websites that feature your product – we’ve found that this works really well.

The quality of Facebook ads are great, but a lot of it boils down to you as an advertiser. You need to nail the messaging of your ad and your landing page – as the quality of the lead rests on you.

You will also find that you can start to generate higher quality leads when you create buy-in for the brand and when and you make it clear what the next steps are. You need to show someone that there is real value in talking to one of your advisers and you’ll have leads flying in all over the show.

Are you reaping the benefits of chatbots?

Did you know that you can utilise Facebook ads to trigger a chatbot related to a specific financial service product? With chatbots, you’ll save time and hassle, as it will automate communication with a potential client and only provide you with the important information that you need to know. To your surprise, the also would have already scheduled a call with you! Chatbots provide a win-win scenario.

How to get cheap clicks on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great platform for B2B however, it can end up being quite costly if you do exactly what it tells you to do in regards to its ads. We don’t do what they say and we are getting some really great results.

We highly recommend bidding to get in front of a thousand people (or impressions). Essentially, you bid around £15 – £20 to get in front of a thousand people and if you get more than four clicks, you’ll get cheaper clicks than bidding on a cost per click, as LinkedIn recommends. As they say, the proof is in the pudding, and on some campaigns we’re getting clicks for 35p rather than the £5 Linkedin recommends.

You can also utilise LinkedIn targeting, where you can target people based on anything that’s on someone’s LinkedIn profile i.e. job title, seniority, industry etc. I’m sure you get the gist…

Do it for the ‘Gram…

Last but not least, you can manage your ads for Instagram withing Facebook Ads Manager, but your ads will need a different strategy. With Facebook ads, you don’t need to rely on visuals as much as you would with Instagram. So get your creative thinking caps on for ads on Insta.

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